


the sun pours down like honey

by celaenos



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Hellenistic Religion & Lore), Post-Campaign One, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 16:58:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17832530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/pseuds/celaenos
Summary: The deal goes like this: when the world is blooming, when it is most alive, then it can sustain someone like Vax. But when it is her time, when the world is cold and things begin to die, then so must he. No one can escape death. Vax is dead, but he is not gone.Not all the way.





	the sun pours down like honey

**Author's Note:**

> idk man, i saw [a post on tumblr](http://banrions.tumblr.com/post/173941335177/concept) and wanted a hades/persephone riff kinda thing and this isn't quite what i thought it would be but it was fun to write.

Vax comes home.

It’s shocking for all involved. Vex stands there and stares, confused and hopeful and in pain at the sight of him, Vax can tell. She’s frozen. She doesn’t believe her eyes—assumes trickery and magic.

It is, that.

Just not in the way that she thinks.

“Hey, Stubby,” he whispers, voice unused to the gravity of the earth, these days. Vex gasps. A sharp desperate thing that tugs itself from her lungs. “How are things?” he asks, giving her a crooked smile. Vex goes rigid for a fleeting moment and then _runs_ at him. He only has a flutter of seconds to brace himself, back leg out and arms going up ready to catch his sister. The force takes the two of them down regardless, Vax’s elbow slamming into the earth and Vex hollering in pain as her knee follows.

She stops screaming and starts asking questions, backing away from him in a panic and clutching at her head. “It’s a trick, fuck. No, it’s a trick—you’re not really here. You _feel_ like you’re really here. What’s happening?”

“I’m really here,” he says, firm. Gentle. “But—”

“Fuck that bitch raven,” Vex snarls and tries to stand up and walk away but Vax is still quick as anything and he’s got his palm around her wrist in a flash. “ _Vax—”_ she cries, teeth gritted.

“I’m really here,” he repeats. “For a while.”

“I can’t do that again,” Vex hisses. “I _can’t._ ”

“I’ll be back.”

“What the fuck are you on about?” she snarls. She’s as fierce as he remembers. As vibrant and brilliant and cruel as he hoped. He loves her with every fiber of his being.

“We worked out a deal, of sorts,” he says, careful. Vex is two seconds away from slapping him in the face and sauntering back up to the castle grounds and desecrating The Raven Queen’s temple. “She wants to have her will carried out here. I’m… I’m still hers. I’m still—”

“Dead?” Vex asks, and he knows that she can see it, now. He’s a solid thing still but it’s not quite flesh and bone in the way that he used to be. It’s obvious the longer that he sits in this dirt beside his brilliantly alive sister.

“Yes,” Vax nods. “That’s not changing.”

“What the _fuck,_ Vax?”

“I’m her champion,” he shrugs. “I’m doing her bidding below and above.”

Vex punches him and leaves, just as he thought she might.

…

…

The deal goes like this: when the world is blooming, when it is most alive, then it can sustain someone like Vax. But when it is her time, when the world is cold and things begin to die, then so must he. No one can escape death. Vax is dead, but he is not gone.

Not all the way.

…

…

He follows Vex into Whitestone. Of course, he does.

Percy drops a plate and reaches for his gun, which is only mildly insulting. Vex’s shoulders freeze up again. “You can see him too?” she asks. She sounds young. Waking up from a nightmare in Bryoden and curling herself into their mother’s bed. Vax jumps towards her—like always.

“Yes,” Percy says, awed and wary and keeping his finger braced on the trigger. Vax doesn’t take offense further. It’s good that Freddie is unwilling to let anyone hurt Vex, even him. Perhaps especially him. 

Vex whips back around, one hand reaching back towards Percy and one reaching towards Vax, instinct. Vax smiles. “Things haven’t changed too much, then,” he says.

“I’m pregnant,” Vex says, and the whole world shifts in one blink of a moment.

…

…

The Raven Queen is not cruel. Vax remembers hating her before he understood. He hated her after, too, but it was misplaced anger and unfair of him. His death was all his own doing, in the end.

He’d do it all over again, if it meant that Vex got to live. He regrets how it hurt her, hurt Keyleth, but he’d rather them both be hurt and alive and together.

The Raven Queen understands. Vax doesn’t know what it is she sees in him that makes her willing to grant this favor, there’s some affection there. Has been for a while, but neither of them understood it, exactly. It’s an entirely new relationship than with Vex or Keyleth, but it falls somewhere in between, maybe.

He’s got the rest of eternity to figure it out.

She brushes her finger across his cheek before he leaves, the first time. Vax reaches up and holds it there. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“It’s more for me than it is for you,” she says, and Vax does not believe her.

The sun shines on his face again and he cries.

…

…

“Stringbean?” Pike asks, just as wary and gentle as the last time he magically came back from death. He grins at her this time, it’s less painful. Now, he knows what it feels like to leave. What it feels like to come back. Now, he knows that this will not be their last moments together.

“Hiya, Pickle,” he grins. “Want me to do your hair?”

Pike jumps up to him, wrapping her arms so tightly around his neck that if he needed his breath to live now, she’d be choking him of it. Her elation brings on Grog’s and Vax finds them both lifted up into the air in a vice grip that might have snapped him in half, in a previous life.

Scanlan hangs back. Then he cracks a grin and recites a limerick in Vax’ildan’s honor. As filthy and messy and complicated and funny as this entire situation rings true, and Vax moves forward and hugs him. “I missed you too, Scanlan.”

“If I chuck you into that tree, would you die?” Grog asks.

“ _Grog!”_ Pike and Vex scold at the same time.

“I’m already dead, big man,” Vax tells him, gentle. “Can’t kill me now.”

“Cool,” Grog grins, and picks Vax up and chucks him before anyone else can move. Vax saw that one coming. He grins as he soars through the air again. Grits his teeth and grunts once he slams into the dirt, for Grog’s benefit. It doesn’t hurt. His body isn’t really a _body_ anymore. Not all the way.

Grog cheers and asks if they can do it again. Vax jogs back over to him and holds out his arms, the smile never once leaving his face.

…

…

Keyleth won’t look at him again.

Last time, she wouldn’t come down out of a tree, this time, her face stays smashed into Vex’s shoulder. Rolling it back and forth and making this small little keening noise as she grips her hand so tightly Vax is a little worried that she is going to break Vex’s fingers.

“It’s a trick,” she whispers, pained.

“It’s not,” Vex and Vax say in tandem.

Keyleth keeps her face pressed into Vex’s shoulder, the vice grip on her hand, but she rolls her forehead over so that she can look over at Vax.

“It’s not a trick,” he assures her. “I’m back for the spring. And every spring after, if I want.”

Keyleth twitches against Vex, and then settles again, like she’s shouldering something she hadn’t expected would be that heavy. Vax is desperate to get her into his arms. Both of them. Vex has also been keeping her distance.

“For real?” Keyleth asks, quiet and pained. So hopeful it stings every inch of him.

“For real,” he says, firm. Looking back and forth between both their faces. “Every spring,” he smiles at them. “When the flowers bloom, so do I.”

Keyleth bursts out laughing and flings herself at him, similar to Pike. She doesn’t let go as quickly and before Vax can say anything or reach out for her, Vex slips out of the room, giving the two of them some privacy.

…

…

The Raven Queen had a different name, once.

She was a mortal woman. Flesh and bone, same as Vax used to be. He asks her about her human life, once or twice. She always reacts the same way. Goes stiff and ignores him, or rolls her eyes and says it was so long ago, it doesn’t matter anymore.

“Of course it matters,” Vax says, remembering the looks on Vox Machina’s faces when he reappeared, the first spring.  

She turns around and stares at him. Still, it twists something inside, like she can read his thoughts, almost. Her head cocks into a tilt as she studies him. “It doesn’t,” she reiterates. “Everyone is very long since gone. I have no ties there any longer.”

“Are they here?” Vax asks. “In this realm? Like me?”

“Not quite like you,” she says, hint of a smile. “Only very, very few are like you.”

“How many?” he asks, again. He has never run into anyone in Tal’dorei who feels his brand of cold in the five springs that he has gone back so far. No one who mimics his lack of flesh, but solid, dense presence. No one who is followed by a flock of ravens wherever they go.

She only smiles and brushes a finger across his cheek, as she has at the beginning of every spring. “Only a few. See you soon, my champion.”

…

…

Vax won’t be there when the baby is born.

He does the math in his head as Vox Machina sits around a large and plentiful dining table in Whitestone. They’ll be born in the middle of winter. Vax will miss it.

He’ll miss many things. He’s not really _back_. Not all the way. It finally sinks onto his shoulders when he lays down in bed with Keyleth later that first night. Her arms snake around him and she sort of frowns into his chest. “You feel different,” she says, quiet. “You smell different, too.”

“I am different,” he says. “All of it is.”

“I’m glad to have you, all the way or not,” Keyleth says and curls in closer.

Vax cries himself to sleep. Thinking about how ungrateful he is to want more. Thinking about how many second and third and fourth chances he has been given. All stone erodes and all things die. Some, more than once.

…

…

“Nera,” the Raven Queen says, hundreds of years later. Vax has lost count, they don’t matter so much now. One blurs into another—it hurts less to not count. Kiki taught him that, a few decades ago.

Vax looks up from the braid that he is twisting for a young girl who was afraid of her death. “Sorry?”

“Your mother gave you Vax’ildan,” she says. A pause, “mine gave me that.”

Vax blinks, the realization of what she is giving him settling its way into his Not-Bones. “Oh,” he says, holding this moment between them tenuously. “That’s beautiful.”

“It’s ugly here,” the little girl says.

Vax turns his attention back down to her. “Only sometimes,” he tells her. “Sometimes, it’s ugly up there, too. Your hair looks wonderful,” he points to her reflection in a puddle.

The little girl grins up at him and runs away. The Raven Queen stands, waiting. They’ve performed this dance a hundred times over, now. He steps closer and waits. Her finger brushes against his cheek and then he closes his eyes and feels the sunshine.

Again, and again and again. The flowers bloom and so does Vax.

…

…

Vex’ahlia gives birth to a little girl.

She names her after their mother. Vax meets her for the first time when she is four months old, holding her head up on her own and tracking their movements with her eyes and giggling when Vex reaches over and tickles her stomach.

“You did real good, Stubby,” he whispers. “You and Freddie both.”

“Mostly me.”

“Almost entirely you,” he agrees.

Vex meets his eye. She looks down, as she has nearly every time they’ve interacted since he’s come back. It’s different, Vax knows. It feels different for him, too. He misses a lot. Their lives all continue to go on while he’s with The Raven Queen. 

Babies are born.

He looks down at his niece and smiles at her. He doesn’t try to pick her up again, she wailed the last few times that he attempted. Babies and animals can tell that he’s… off.

“What do you do, when you’re not here?” Vex asks him.

“Help lost souls come to terms with what’s happened to them, mostly. Braid some hair every once in a while,” he grins at her, edging for a smile. She gives him a half-hearted one in return. He doesn’t know how to close this distance between them. It’s there with Kiki too, a little bit. All of them are conscious of the fact that this is temporary. He isn’t going to grow with any of them, no matter how many times he comes back. It’s going to be different—forever.

Vex sets Eliana down in her pack and scoots over beside Vax. Their knees knock together. “I’ll bet you’re good at that. Making people feel better.”

“Sometimes,” he shrugs. “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do.”

Vex reaches out and taps on his knee. “Sometimes it’s just nice not to be alone. Sometimes that’s enough.”

“Good thing you’re not,” he says. “Freddie. Kiki. Pickle. Grog. Scanlan. Velora. This little one,” he knocks their foreheads together. “Look at how many people love you, Stubby.”

Vex chokes on her tears and places her hands on his shoulders. “What about you?”

“I love you more than I love anyone else,” he tells her, easy as breathing. “When I’m here and when I’m not.”

Eliana cries out, demanding her mother’s attention and she laughs. Pressing a kiss to Vax’s forehead she smiles. “Me too.”

“I know Vex,” he grins. “I’ve always known.”

…

…

It’s both easier and harder to leave each time that he does it. The thing about the Raven Queen’s realm, about death, about what’s after is that there is a comfort to it, eventually. There is the initial shock and confusion which only grows every time Vax goes back home—a person but not one. It’s easier to exist, with the Raven Queen. He doesn’t have to think about his skin feeling different or how his body moves about the world or what his family thinks of him, now.

He’s just Vax.

The Raven Queen is good company. The souls that surround them are often funny, or melancholy, or excitable, or just… company. They’re all in the same place now and it’s easy to be in their presence.

It takes quite a few tries, for it to be easy being back home. Vex has a girl, then a boy, then twin girls. It’s when the second boy comes that Vax feels himself settle in the springtime. He stands in the sunshine and smiles and his sister is there waiting for him this time. Eliana and Freddie II running around behind her. The twins bouncing up and down in anticipation at her side, and little Ronan, tucked into her arms and getting ready to let out a brilliant wail.

“Uncle Vax!” Johanna calls. She whacks at her sister and takes off, faster, she leaps into his arms.

“Hey Joey,” he laughs and hugs her tight. “You’ve gotten quick.”

“I’ve been practicing,” she grins.

Claudia slams into his legs. “Me too!” she hollers. “Right, Mama?”

“You’re brilliant,” Vex smiles and bends to press a kiss to the top of her head. “Hello brother, meet your nephew.”

“He cries all the time,” Eliana declares, walking up haughtily and standing beside her mother. Vex rolls her eyes and mouths _‘Pre-teens aren’t fun’,_ but she’s beaming as she does it.

“Babies are quite good at that,” Vax says, mussing up her hair. Eliana groans and tries to swat him away, but even as a dead man, he’s still faster than most of them combined.

They walk back into Whitestone side by side, Vex’ahlia’s children running around them and catching Vax up on what he's missed over this last winter. When they enter the castle grounds, Keyleth looks up from her garden. She looks just as unchanged as she did last spring, and the one before it—same as Vax. Percy’s hair was already gray, but there are crow’s feet forming around his eyes and he needs stronger glasses. Vex has more wrinkles on her forehead—laugh lines, proof that she spends more of her time smiling than not. All of them have some signs of aging creeping up on their bodies. The children are proof of time going by most of all.

Only Keyleth and Vax both look the same.

“Hey, Kiki,” he grins.

“Hi,” she points. “Look at this sunflower!”

Beside him, Vex laughs, amused by Keyleth’s antics and then even more so when Claudia runs over and climbs her way up Keyleth’s back to get a better look. Percy lifts his head from whatever contraption he was messing about with while Keyleth tended to her plants and smiles at Vax. He can hear Grog bickering with Scanlan and Pike inside the kitchen—they all know that he comes on the first day of spring, they always come home, too. Above them, ravens circle and then perch in the trees above Keyleth's garden, reminders that this is temporary, always.

Beside him, his sister holds her son and knocks her head down onto his shoulder. “Happy spring, Vax,” she whispers.

A raven caws and Vex’s eldest daughter looks up and mimics the noise. His sister laughs into Vax’s shoulder, and he smiles.


End file.
